It’s a good month for festivals in the fair city of film. With the East Asia Film Festival opening last night at the IFI and the Japanese Film Festival kicking off throughout the country this weekend, the time is perfect to get out of the April showers and into a cinema. Also this month is the return of the Dublin Sci-Fi Film Festival, and last night the festival held a launch party in the Generator Hostel in Smithfield. With the launch complete and the full schedule of films now announced, the second year of one of Dublin’s top film festivals is ready to get underway at the end of the month.

It has been a year. In 2017 there was a lot for film fans to contemplate, but in what they say on the screen and in the wider film business. Month after month, entertaining, challenging and interesting films found their way onto Irish screens, either from Hollywood or any number of our own talented Irish directors. It was a year where the sickeningly pervasive culture of abuse in cinema was thrust into the headlines by brave survivors no longer willing to suffer in silence. It was also a year in great filmmaking, where talented, diverse directors were given the opportunity to show their talent, several for the first time, where performances transported us just as believably to the far-off future, the underprivileged, overlooked present and even outside the fluid realm of time altogether. This is Film In Dublin’s list of the best films of 2017, the films that moved us, entertained us, opened our eyes and otherwise expressed everything that cinema is meant to be, in a year that showed that cinema doesn’t always achieve those lofty ideals behind the scenes.

With 2017 drawing to a close, what else would Dublin film fans be doing but looking ahead to the film festivals to come in 2018? Of course the Dublin International Film Festival is massive and exciting and we love the Dublin Feminist Film Festival, not to mention the intriguing Smartphone Film Festival, beginning in January. But one we’re particularly looking forward to in the New Year is the second edition of the Dublin Sci-Fi Film Festival, who have some exciting news for sci-fi lovers in the fair city of film we look forward to the new year with great excitement and anticipation as we gear up for our next edition of Dublin Sci-Fi Film Festival.

One thing that should probably be acknowledged about Star Wars before launching into a review of the latest entry to the series is that its cultural footprint is simply too big for anything approaching a consensus to form. Every Star Wars film since the original faced heavy backlash after their initial release. Some were also widely acclaimed at the same time. Some grew their reputation over the years. And some were the prequels. A film that aims to be seen by so many simply cannot please everyone all of the time, even if it tried, but despite the pressure of having to deliver to such a dedicated fanbase and such keenly invested taskmasters at Disney, director Rian Johnson boldly declares never to tell him the odds and instead has made The Last Jedi into the kind of film he knows will entertain one person for certain: himself. Make something for yourself and others usually follow, and those of a like-mind with Johnson will see in The Last Jedi an ambitious, electrifying and reflective blockbuster.

The advanced screening of Blade Runner 2049 and presumably, all advanced screenings of the film, began with a letter from the director, imploring those in attendance to keep tight lipped about the film’s various twists and turns, to “not spoil the magic”. And though there are plenty of spoilers that will, for the purposes of playing ball, be avoided in this review, Blade Runner and its sequel are not films about the plot details, not really. Despite the many story-changing cuts and decades of speculation and misleading trailers and advance screening advanced warnings, these are films whose true value lays not in the story beats but in the ideas and the images and everything else that a rogue tweet or a too-curious eye over a Wikipedia page cannot take away from you. From the outside, Blade Runner 2049 may look like yet another nostalgia cash-in, and an odd choice for one at that, but it’s no mere replicant of the original, providing a beautiful backdrop against which the series’ themes about identity, memory and autonomy are given further thought.

There’s a great chase sequence near the beginning of Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets in which the characters exist simultaneously in two alternate dimensions. One a colorful, expansive and beautiful looking desert world filled with wide-eyed consumers; the other an over-packed, messy and dangerous market planet, where the possibility of adventure (or disaster) lies around every corner. Much like this inter-dimensional marketplace, the film seems to exist in two separate states at once. And, much like the characters, viewers will likely find themselves torn between the two. Valerian is awful. But it’s also kind of amazing. And damn if it’s not great to look at!Read more…

Science fiction doesn’t always have to be about laser beams and Ewoks. For those who like the science in their films to be a little harder in nature, the Irish Film Institute is offering a series of films, both fact and fiction, that explore and incorporate plausible scientific methods and practices into their stories. These are the thinking person’s films about science and they’re on offer next week at the IFI.Read more…

Ireland’s newest genre film festival is coming to Dublin from the 5th-7th May. Dublin Sci Fi Film Festival’s inaugural programme features Irish premieres of The Winter Soldier (from Blue Valentine screenwriter, Joey Curtis), The Untamed (Winner of the Venice Film Festival Silver Lion) and Creature Designers: The Frankenstein Complex; indie gems such as She’s Allergic to Cats and Embers; a range of international shorts and Sci-Fi classics such as Barbarella, The Forbidden Planet and a very special 30th anniversary screening of The Running Man.

Last month, we told you about the Dublin Sci-Fi Film Festival, the city’s newest film festival dedicated to the genres of fantasy and science fiction. The festival announced that they were accepting submissions from aspiring sci-fi filmmakers to screen their work, a process that is still open. Now further details, including dates and venues, have been announced for the Dublin Sci-Fi Film Festival.